There are people whose entire lives literally revolve around golf. They spend their days as PGA Professionals, club fitters, golf personalities, or some combination thereof. When they finish their coffee in the morning, they go to the golf course. They’re surrounded by racks of new equipment in the clubhouse, pyramids of range balls, and a host of co-workers to talk to who know the game and enjoy it (at least on some level). If I just described you, good on you. Lots of readers here want to be you.

Then there’s the rest of us. We’re general contractors, insurance salesmen, elementary school teachers, doctors, union carpenters, and loan officers. Some of us make $40,000 a year and some of us make $400,000 a year. Some of us are single-digit handicappers and some of us just broke 100 for the first time. We finish our coffee in the morning, drop the kids off at school, and go to work. The majority of our co-workers have never played golf except for the company golf scramble five years ago, which was really just a chance to skip out on work and try to win a door prize.

Outside of work, the kids have soccer and softball practices, the yard needs mowing, and the wife wants to go to her yoga class. Somewhere in that chaos (and among the constant ringing of your cell phone), you have to make time for golf. And by the way, the oldest needs braces, the minivan needs new tires, and renovating your bathroom is about 10 years overdue. If there’s anything left of that very limited supply of money, it’d be nice to upgrade your old R9 driver.

Let’s face the facts. Golf is hard. Really hard. Stupid hard. And just getting out to the course to find out how hard it is requires 5-6 hours of your weekend, $1,000 for a serviceable bag full of clubs, $50 for your round, and another $75 for balls, a glove, a hot dog, and some beers at the turn. And you’re just getting started. Wait until you spend every lunch break on the range trying to get better in between rounds, then spring for a few lessons, then get custom fitted for new clubs. The rabbit hole is deep, my friend.

The point of this article is not to push everyone to play 10 rounds of golf a week. It’s not to tell you that you need a swing coach, a fitness instructor, and a nutritionist. It’s not even to tell you to tuck your elbow in, keep your head still, or your knees bent. It’s certainly not meant to slight those that do provide that content (as it is useful) or to scare away the casual or even the curious golfer. The point of this article is merely to say this: I get it.

Golf is a difficult, expensive, and time consuming game, but I’ll be damned if it isn’t the most fun you can have with your clothes on (to paraphrase Jimmy Demaret’s famous quote). That 7-iron you hit over water to 2 feet last Saturday was one of the highlights of your year. For that one moment, you weren’t thinking about bills or deadlines or any responsibilities at all. You felt invincible… like you had just slayed a dragon. And that’s why you do it. It’s a chance to be outside in some of the prettiest acreage around, forget about how long that load of laundry has been in the dryer, and chase that dragon.

If this article describes you, I’m rooting for you. Brand new golf clubs don’t fall into your lap, you live and work 15 miles away from the golf course, you’ve got 10,000 other things competing for your attention… but you still make it happen. Good for you. Spend some quality time with the wife and kids this week, go crush it at work, and then get out there and go low this weekend.